Pondo once again takes top Academic Decathlon honors

Ponderosa High School won the El Dorado County Academic Decathlon on Feb. 1 at Union Mine High School. This is the 22nd consecutive win for the Bruins and now the Shingle Springs high school will represent El Dorado County in the California Academic Decathlon on March 21 and 22. The competition will take place in Sacramento.

The featured topic for this year’s Academic Decathlon was World War I and the questions during the Super Quiz focused on that topic. Ponderosa won the Super Quiz. Dylan Musgrove of Ponderosa was the highest overall scorer. Top scoring alternate was Vivian Santana of Union Mine High School. Top scoring speech was delivered by Morgan Henry of Ponderosa and the top essay was written by Elizabeth Strutz of Ponderosa.

Teams from El Dorado, Oak Ridge, Ponderosa and Union Mine took part in the county decathlon over a two-day period. The essay, speech and interview portions of the 10 contested disciplines took place on Jan. 29. The tests in language and literature, art, science, math, music, economics and social science took place on Feb. 1.

Each team was made up of three A students, three B students and three C students in the Honor, Scholastic and Varsity divisions and team alternates. The top three scorers in each category and division earned gold, silver and bronze medals.

In-kind sponsors were also recognized. Minuteman Press for printing the testing materials and the Placerville Kiwanis for preparing a delicious grilled hamburger lunch.

Several key volunteers were mentioned: Candis Spallina, chairwoman of the speech competition; Linda Marsden, chairwoman of the interview process; Thomas Hague, chairman of the essay portion; essay readers Thomas Griffin and Candace Hale-Lightner; testing personnel who volunteered all day on Saturday: Darlene Tarlton, Dee Olson, Clare Dusek, Jerry Galloway and David Shelnutt; registrar Pat Panto; and Jeff Janoian and Dick Warner who took care of scoring.

Meyers appreciated the efforts of El Dorado Board of Education member Matt Boyer and El Dorado Union High School District board member Kevin Brown for assisting with the Super Quiz and awards ceremony.

Posted by Mimi Escabar
on Feb 25 2014.
Last Login: Mon Sep 1 20:33:31 2014
Filed under Featured Stories, News.
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